NEW DELHI: The Central government has released 263 billion rupees to 20 states for capital expenditure under the first installment of special assistance in the current fiscal year, the Department of Expenditure's summary report for October showed.

 For these 20 states, the Center has thus far approved 582 billion rupees in special assistance for capital investments. The provision falls under Part-I of the proposed 1 trillion rupee interest-free loans, which are above and above the 4% borrowing limit for states and are set aside in the budget for the fiscal year 2022–2023. The Center's 7.5 trillion rupee capital expenditure outlay for current fiscal year includes the one trillion rupee allocation.

According to the recommendation of the 15th Finance Commission, 800 billion rupees of the total budgeted amount had been set aside for Part-I of the programme, which is distributed to states in proportion to their shares of central taxes and charges for projects chosen by them. Multiple portions of the remaining 200 billion rupees were distributed. The Center has approved and distributed 9.0 billion rupees to four states -- Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, and Meghalaya, out  of the 50 billion rupees designated as Part-II of the programme for Prime Minister's GatiShakti-related expenditures.

In addition, 30 billion rupees were set out in Part-V of the plan for capital projects involving an optical fibre cable network. The Center has approved 12 billion rupees under this for 11 states. According to the 15th Finance Commission's recommendations, the government also distributed 1.51 trillion rupees to the states for October, the report showed.

A total of 71.83 billion rupees have been distributed to the states as a post-devolution revenue deficit grant, along with 0.17 billion rupees as the center's contribution to the state disaster response fund, 4.88 billion rupees as its share of the state disaster mitigation fund, 19.04 billion rupees as a grant for urban local bodies, 53.48 billion rupees as a grant for rural local bodies, and the remaining 1.81 billion rupees as a grant for the health sector.

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